I'm not really sure how many games Microsoft can launch day one with the Scarlett as Halo Infinite will massively overshadow anything that releases, I don't think Phil has just been going to Japan to get ports of games that arbitrarely skipped Xbox along with wanting to get a first party precence in Japan and in the meantime they have been staffing up quite a lot for positions that seem like a Xbox Global Publishing Asia branch, Japan is also day one launch for Scarlett and xCloud making a big push into Japan he needs to get content on there that will make Xbox relevant which is why I think they will have a second party deal in place for a few games similar to Lost Odyssey/Blue Dragon from the 360.

Along with Halo at launch the Gamepass model will favour a constant flow of games and I could see a launch window like:

December: Flight Simulator

January: Ninja Theory new IP

February: Killer Instinct 2

March: Compulsion new IP

April: inXile/Obsidian new IP

I don't think we will see Everwild until late 2021 and Fable 4 along with The Initiative's new IP until 2022.

Dragon Age 4 (codename Morrison, been in development since late 2018, rumored to be reusing many assets from the cancelled Dragon Age Joplin which was in development from 2015-2018, which could speed up development and allow it to release Holiday 2020 potentially, gameplay teaser trailer rumored for December 4th with full reveal at The Game Awards on December 12th)

I'm not really sure how many games Microsoft can launch day one with the Scarlett as Halo Infinite will massively overshadow anything that releases, I don't think Phil has just been going to Japan to get ports of games that arbitrarely skipped Xbox along with wanting to get a first party precence in Japan and in the meantime they have been staffing up quite a lot for positions that seem like a Xbox Global Publishing Asia branch, Japan is also day one launch for Scarlett and xCloud making a big push into Japan he needs to get content on there that will make Xbox relevant which is why I think they will have a second party deal in place for a few games similar to Lost Odyssey/Blue Dragon from the 360.

Along with Halo at launch the Gamepass model will favour a constant flow of games and I could see a launch window like:

December: Flight Simulator

January: Ninja Theory new IP

February: Killer Instinct 2

March: Compulsion new IP

April: inXile/Obsidian new IP

I don't think we will see Everwild until late 2021 and Fable 4 along with The Initiative's new IP until 2022.

Original Xbox launched with Halo: CE, Dead or Alive 3 and Project Gotham Racing as the biggest games. In total there were 11 games. Xbox 360 launched with 18 games (nothing as big as Halo: CE), and Xbox One launched with 21 games. Xbox Scarlett will likely launch with 15-25 games of varying popularity.

Regarding the lineup, I don't think Forza Motorsport 8 will make 2020, they've been busy overhauling the engine and only just started development IIRC, I could see Playground coming to the 'rescue' with Forza Horizon 5 though, but they'd be using the old Forzatech engine, not that I think that matters, I've never looked at Forza Horizon and thought it needs a new engine.

Everwild has no chance of releasing in 2020 imo as it's still in pre-production with a team of 50, I see that releasing sometime in 2022. Gears Tactics I think will be in the later half of 2020 so that sounds reasonable, Psychonauts 2 is a mystery, there's no hard release date and Microsoft has announced most it's XGS dates for early 2020 so I could see that releasing in late 2020. I also don't see Flight Sim releasing on Xbox until like 6+ months after the PC release.

I'm curious about how Microsoft will handle the launch lineup, with Gamepass it makes more sense to spread your releases out, will they have a big launch lineup that will likely get overshadowed by Halo Infinite anyway, or will they spread the releases out, maybe 1-2 smaller titles to sit alongside Infinite and bigger titles in the months afterwards.

I also think it's harder to predict as I believe XGP will pick up some slack as their internal studios won't be ready; Hopefully we get another Killer Instinct though.

Regarding the lineup, I don't think Forza Motorsport 8 will make 2020, they've been busy overhauling the engine and only just started development IIRC, I could see Playground coming to the 'rescue' with Forza Horizon 5 though, but they'd be using the old Forzatech engine, not that I think that matters, I've never looked at Forza Horizon and thought it needs a new engine.

Everwild has no chance of releasing in 2020 imo as it's still in pre-production with a team of 50, I see that releasing sometime in 2022. Gears Tactics I think will be in the later half of 2020 so that sounds reasonable, Psychonauts 2 is a mystery, there's no hard release date and Microsoft has announced most it's XGS dates for early 2020 so I could see that releasing in late 2020. I also don't see Flight Sim releasing on Xbox until like 6+ months after the PC release.

I'm curious about how Microsoft will handle the launch lineup, with Gamepass it makes more sense to spread your releases out, will they have a big launch lineup that will likely get overshadowed by Halo Infinite anyway, or will they spread the releases out, maybe 1-2 smaller titles to sit alongside Infinite and bigger titles in the months afterwards.

I also think it's harder to predict as I believe XGP will pick up some slack as their internal studios won't be ready; Hopefully we get another Killer Instinct though.

Lineup: Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Killer Instinct, New XGP IP?

I'm guessing with your launch lineup you are just mentioning first-party games? It is almost guaranteed the annual sports titles will also be launch titles, as well as CoD 2020.

As you can see there was no game the size of Halo and lots of sports titles. Exclusive wise you really only had Crimson Dragon, Dead Rising 3, Forza Motorsport 5, and Rise: Son of Rome.

Yeah we'll get the typical multiplatforms, I'm just finding it harder to predict exclusives this time, as it's already confirmed they'll be no exclusives to Scarlet, will they try to push Scarlet sales as much with a huge lineup or are they more focused on Gamepass and thus spread them out? Either way, Halo Infinite alone is a far bigger title than all of those.

Kinda wish Microsoft would play on nostalgia for Scarlet, Halo Infinite is very much trying to play on Halo CE's themes from the sounds of it, there's the rumoured Perfect Dark in development, they would be stupid to not do another Killer Instinct, and even though I don't care about the IP, a Banjo remake wouldn't hurt.

I'm not really sure how many games Microsoft can launch day one with the Scarlett as Halo Infinite will massively overshadow anything that releases, I don't think Phil has just been going to Japan to get ports of games that arbitrarely skipped Xbox along with wanting to get a first party precence in Japan and in the meantime they have been staffing up quite a lot for positions that seem like a Xbox Global Publishing Asia branch, Japan is also day one launch for Scarlett and xCloud making a big push into Japan he needs to get content on there that will make Xbox relevant which is why I think they will have a second party deal in place for a few games similar to Lost Odyssey/Blue Dragon from the 360.

Along with Halo at launch the Gamepass model will favour a constant flow of games and I could see a launch window like:

December: Flight Simulator

January: Ninja Theory new IP

February: Killer Instinct 2

March: Compulsion new IP

April: inXile/Obsidian new IP

I don't think we will see Everwild until late 2021 and Fable 4 along with The Initiative's new IP until 2022.

Original Xbox launched with Halo: CE, Dead or Alive 3 and Project Gotham Racing as the biggest games. In total there were 11 games. Xbox 360 launched with 18 games (nothing as big as Halo: CE), and Xbox One launched with 21 games. Xbox Scarlett will likely launch with 15-25 games of varying popularity.

I only did first/second party games in my list I think there will be a lot more overall at launch and the most third party games we have seen as launch titles next gen actually due to the ease of development. I do also think there is a point of where you have to much first party content at launch for such a small and relative hardcore audience who will adopt early either way and showing off a solid and constant stream of games through 2021 and some of the biggest stuff in 2022 is key for mindshare so people can gravitate to certain games and think that's when I'm going to dive in.